“Mr. Brooks” — A FilmCritic Review

A film review by Sean O’Connell - Copyright © 2007 filmcritic.com

Don’t feel bad if, during the opening salvos of Mr. Brooks, you question whether you’ve sat down at the midpoint of the film.

Director Bruce Evans structures his serial-killer thriller like a John Sandford or James Patterson page-turner, the kind that made household names of fictitious crime-solvers Alex Cross and Lucas Davenport. Evans intentionally paces his movie like the middle act of a longer story, which is a bold move until we realize Brooks raises more questions than the director and his co-writer, Raynold Gideon, can answer.

Title character Brooks, portrayed with icy detachment by Kevin Costner, is introduced as a veteran criminal coming out of a two-year period of inactivity. A mild schizophrenic, Brooks discusses his lethal decisions with alter-ego Marshall (William Hurt), an instigating personality who routinely encourages the conservative family man to act on his malicious impulses. Brooks even has an arch-enemy on the police force in Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore), who also carries her own healthy backstory involving an ex-husband trying to siphon off a portion of the officer’s financial inheritance.

And we’ve barely scratched the surface of the plot. Brooks — and, by default, Marshall — unwittingly picks up a protégé in Smith (Dane Cook), an amateur photographer who catches Brooks in the act of murder. Instead of going to the police, Smith uses his photographic evidence to blackmail Brooks into teaching him how to kill. At home, Brooks’ daughter Jane (Danielle Panabaker) tells daddy she’s dropping out of college. He correctly assumes she has bigger fish to fry, though I’ll leave her issues for you to discover.

Read the full review at FilmCritic.com.